Earlier this week, I took a group of students - more than 50 - to a live production of A Christmas Carol.
Between that, and the new film, The Man Who Invented Christmas, I was inspired to make today's book review about this Dickens classic.
(As a side note, I really, really want to see this movie!)
Okay, so into the review of A Christmas Carol itself.
Dickens is freaking brilliant. Let's just get that obvious statement out of the way right now. His writing is both hilarious and heartbreaking, touching and devastating.
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
This particular classic contains one of the best-named characters in all of literature. Ebeneezer Scrooge. Even the sound of the name, the way the letters and sounds play together, evokes the character of a "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”
If you only know the story from the movies (my personal favourite is the Muppets one!), do yourself a favour and actually read the book itself.
The Q and A section following the play we just went to: (Don't you love the scenes?)
Even from the beginning, Dickens' tone is the perfect mix of thoughtful and fearful, introspective and celebratory.
“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.”
This is the book that developed the current consciousness of societal images of Christmas. It has all of the details of the reality of class struggles that were so important to Dickens, as evidenced throughout all of his works, but also the details that we now take to be traditional Christmas.
So much of what is changed or omitted from the film versions (even the beloved Muppets version!), is here "fixed". Revisiting his former fiance is an effective scene that is often ignored. The final scenes with his nephew are more profound to the characters' full realizations than most of the film adaptations, as well. As a kid, it always bugged me that Scrooge didn't spend Christmas with Fred after he was saved. Turns out, there is a reason that it always seemed wrong to me. Because it is!
One day, I want to be able to say that I read A Christmas Carol every year, snuggled up by a lit Christmas tree with candlelight and soft carols playing. I can't say that yet, but I have revisited it for a few seasons. I was lucky enough to find a couple of beautiful vintage hardcover copies in a thrift shop. I leave those copies out on my ottoman all season, just to encourage me to flip through the familiar pages once more.
See? Aren't they pretty?
Anyway, as someone who loves the Christmas season, of course I love the definite Christmas book. As someone who loves Dickens, of course I love one of his most famous books. As someone who loves well-written, good books, with amazing characters, of course I love A Christmas Carol.
So now that it's almost December, I hope you have a good holiday season, and God Bless Us, Everyone!
Have you read this famous classic? What's your favourite film adaptation of it?
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